How to Learn, How to Teach English

Many Business English students ask about titles. For example: What’s the difference between a Senior Manager and a Vice-President? Where do General Mangers do exactly? How do companies use titles differently? Trying to translate titles between English and another language can be quite tricky.

But a lesson on the topic can easily solve the problems. Here are several resources you can use and then some follow-up questions.

For starters… Wikipedia’s article on corporate titles is a good place to start. You’ll find a list of over 70 titles and descriptions of what the people do.

Check out some org charts… You can find links to thousands of org charts on the internet. Just do a search for “org charts” or “organization charts”. Here are a few links, anyway. Look at them with your students and discuss how they are similar or different to each other. Also, which titles do you see?

And an article to read… Finally, about.com has a nice article about org charts. It briefly talks about charts, titles, and the purposes behind them. You can use it as a starting point for a discussion.

This lesson is part of a series of one-hour lessons that will help students improve their prosody skills. Prosody, in short, is word stress, timing, and intonation. For an introduction to the series, click here.

20 Minutes Pass out this worksheet. Students should read the song lyrics and answer the comprehension questions.

10 Minutes Read the song together. Students should listen and repeat each line. Note that the words are timed differently in order to create a steady rhythm. For instance, “mom and dad” and “you” should be said in the same amount of time.

20 Minutes Listen to the song four times. The first two times, just listen. The third time, students should quietly say the words while the song plays. The final time, everyone should sing along.

Extension: Have the students write an extra verse to the song.

Materials

Worksheet—Timing

Listen to these sentences. Answer the questions below.

–1–

A: How was the movie?

B: It was interesting.

Did B like the movie? YES NO

–2–

A: I want to go home.

Does A say “home” quickly or slowly?

Does A say “want” quickly or slowly?

–3–

A: I love you.

B: I love you too.

Does A love B? YES NO

Does B love A? YES NO

Read these sentences to your partner. Your partner should choose if you use short or long timing for the underlined words.

I love football.

Could you please call me on Saturday?

She’s never worn those boots before.

Tokyo was a…great city.

Are we there yet?

Worksheet—Don Williams “I Believe”

Read the lyrics for the song “I Believe” by Don Williams

I don’t believe in superstars,
organic food and foreign cars.
I don’t believe the price of gold;
the certainty of growing old,
that right is right and left is wrong,
that north and south can’t get along,
that east is east and west is west,
and being first is always best.

But I believe in love.
I believe in babies.
I believe in mom and dad.
And I believe in you.

Well, I don’t believe that heaven waits,
for only those who congregate.
I like to think of God as love:
He’s down below, He’s up above.
He’s watching people everywhere.
He knows who does and doesn’t care.
And I’m an ordinary man.
Sometimes I wonder who I am.

But I believe in love.
I believe in music.
I believe in magic.
And I believe in you.

Well, I know with all my certainty,
what’s going on with you and me,
is a good thing.
It’s true, I believe in you.

I don’t believe virginity
is as common as it used to be,
in working days and sleeping nights,
that black is black and white is white,
that Superman and Robin Hood
are still alive in Hollywood,
that gasoline’s in short supply,
the rising cost of getting by.

But I believe in love.
I believe in old folks.
I believe in children.
I believe in you.

I believe in love.
I believe in babies.
I believe in mom and dad.
And I believe in you.

Answer these questions about the song

“To believe” means to think it is true. In the song, Don Williams says “I don’t believe…” about many things. For example, “I don’t believe that heaven waits for only those who congregate.” Can you find more examples of things Don Williams doesn’t think are true.

“To believe in” is different from “to believe”. Let’s look at the difference. To believe in means to (1) trust it or (2) think it’s a good idea or (3) have hope for its future.

Find an example of (1), (2), and (3).

(1)

(2)

(3)

What is organic food?

What does “I don’t believe [in] the certainty of growing old” mean?

“Right is right and left is wrong” is about politicians. Do you know of any “right” politicians? How about a “left” politician?

What does “Heaven waits for only those who congregate mean”?

a) Only people who believe in God go to heaven

b) Only people that go to church go to heaven

c) Only some people go to heaven

Does he think there are more or fewer virgins these days? a) more b) fewer

Do you know who Superman is? How about Robin Hood?

What does “folks” mean?

a) People

b) Dogs

c) Cars

Answer Key

“To believe” means to think it is true. In the song, Don Williams says “I don’t believe…” about many things. For example, “I don’t believe that heaven waits for only those who congregate.” Can you find more examples of things Don Williams doesn’t think are true.

He doesn’t believe that we will certainly get old, that right is right, that left is wrong, that east is east and west is west and being first is always best, that heaven waits for only those who congregate, that virginity is as common as it used to be, that Superman and Robin Hood are still alive in Hollywood, or that gasoline’s in short supply.

“To believe in” is different from “to believe”. Let’s look at the difference. To believe in means to (1) trust it or (2) think it’s a good idea or (3) have hope for its future.

Find an example of (1), (2), and (3). Answers may be different, but for example.

(1) Mom and Dad

(2) Love

(3) Children

What is organic food? Food without chemicals added to it.

What does “I don’t believe [in] the certainty of growing old” mean? It means that we might die before we are old. (For example, maybe a bus will hit us.)

“Right is right and left is wrong” is about politicians. Do you know of any “right” politicians? How about a “left” politician? George Bush is “right”. Barack Obama is “left”.

What does “Heaven waits for only those who congregate mean”?

a) Only people who believe in God go to heaven

b) Only people that go to church go to heaven

c) Only some people go to heaven

Does he think there are more or fewer virgins these days? a) more b) fewer

Do you know who Superman is? How about Robin Hood? They are imaginary heroes.

This lesson is part of a series of one-hour lessons that will help students improve their prosody skills. Prosody, in short, is word stress, timing, and intonation. For an introduction to the series, click here.

Name: Unstressed

Time: 1 hour

Prep Time: It depends on how much you already know about word stress. You may have to learn a little more before starting.

5 Minutes Review what word stress is. Explain that today, instead of focusing the stressed words, you’re going to work on noticing the unstressed words.

15 Minutes Pass out this sheet. Read the full sentences from the answer sheet. Make sure to say the missing words with minimal stress. The students should try to write the missing words. Review the answers.

20 Minutes Put the students in groups and ask them to add to the list of commonly unstressed words. Ask them to try to make groups of similar words. Demonstrate by making a list of helper verbs (e.g. have, do, etc.) on the board.

Then, each student should come to the front of the class and write one commonly unstressed word on the board. Demonstrate the groups of words by circling the prepositions, underlining the helper verbs, and putting a square around the pronouns.

Write an example sentence on the board with one word from each group.

5 Minutes Have the students practice reading the sentences on the sheets in pairs.

15 Minutes Have the students write their own sentences. They should leave out or erase the unstressed words. Finally, they should read the sentences for their partner. The partner should try to fill in the missing words.

Extension Practice reading the sentences a final time, but use physical movements to reinforce the stressed/unstressed words. For instance, have everyone stand up. When there is a stressed word, they should jump. When there is an unstressed word, they should duck.

Notes: Just because a group of words is commonly unstressed, doesn’t mean they are always unstressed. Of course, lots of prepositions, pronouns, and helper verbs are stressed sometimes. This is all just a guideline.

Ideas for Homework: Students might watch a short clip of something and rewrite the transcript. They should underline the stressed words. (For example, they might watch a video like this, open the interactive transcript on the right and choose one paragraph for them to do).

Worksheet—Unstressed Words

These words are not usually stressed

Have

Are

Do

Is

The

A

Lot

Not

That

It

This

In

For

Of

On

At

Listen to your teacher read these sentences. Use the words above and other words to complete them.

1. I __________ never saved __________ __________ __________ money.

2. Don’t __________ think that __________ too expensive?

3. How __________ __________ usually spend __________ money?

4. This __________ __________ good price. You should think __________ getting __________.

5. __________ __________ usually find __________ good deal?

6. How much __________ __________ pay __________ __________ dress?

7. Who handles __________ money __________ __________ family?

8. He asked __________ __________ new loan, but they denied __________.

This lesson is part of a series of one-hour lessons that will help students improve their prosody skills. Prosody, in short, is word stress, timing, and intonation. For an introduction to the series, click here.

Introduce the concept (5 minutes) On the board, write three sentences with circles above each word. Bigger circles mean more stress. Read them with the students.

(Note: It’s difficult to change the font in this blog, so in place of circles, you’ll see letters here. S=Small, M=Medium, B=Big. On the worksheets, you’ll see circles (bubbles) instead.)

S B M S

I love football.

S B M S

She’s so stupid.

M S S M M

I don’t think that’s true.

Practice as a class (25 minutes) Pass out the first page of these worksheets. Students should listen to you read the sentences and make circles above the syllables depending on how much stress the syllable needs. More stress means a bigger circle.

Then, pass out another worksheet with suggested answers and practice reading the sentences together.

Practice in Pairs (20 minutes) Pass out the third worksheet to half the class with similar but slightly different sentences.

Pass out the fourth worksheet to the other half of the class.

Students should complete the worksheet in pairs, with one student reading and the other making circles above their words.

Then they should practice reading them in pairs.

Finally, practice reading them as a class.

On their own (10 Minutes) Now, ask students to write a couple sentences on their own and make their own circles above the words. They should practice reading these in pairs as well.

Extension: Instead of just writing a few sentences, students might write whole dialogues and note the word stress throughout.

Ideas for Homework: Tell the students to choose a song they enjoy, find the lyrics, and create stress markings for them.

This is a series of grammar lesson plans. For an introduction to the series, please click here.

Name: Present Perfect

Time: 1 hour

Prep Time: Time to gather the materials

Materials: You and the students should bring some pictures of places you’ve been. Come prepared with some copies of a map of the city you teach in. The students that don’t bring any pictures can use the maps.

Primary Objective: Teach the use of present perfect for events that started and ended in the past (this lesson is not about for and since).

Other Benefits: Discuss past travel

Plan:

First Exposure (15 minutes) Show the students several pictures from your past. Describe them with present perfect. (e.g. I’ve been to… I’ve eaten… I’ve danced at… I’ve visited…)

After you’ve said five facts, ask various students questions to prompt them to use the present perfect. (e.g. Where have I been? What have I eaten? Where have I danced? What have I visited?)

Now, say another five facts and ask another five questions. In total, try to use 30+ examples. At the end, ask random questions from everything you said.

Identify the Grammar (5 minutes) Ask the students these questions. Ask follow-up questions as needed to solicit the correct answers.

Which verb tense am I using? Present Perfect

When did these events happen? Sometime in the past, but we don’t know when exactly.

Does it matter when these events happened? No, it doesn’t matter. We’re just interested in the event, not when.

Controlled Use (15 minutes) Have the students complete this worksheet. Then review it.

Explanation (5 minutes) Now, explain to the students that present perfect is have/has + the third form of the verb (usually –ed, but sometimes different like eaten of eat-ate-eaten). We use it for situations that happened in the past, but we don’t know, or we don’t care when.

For example:

A: I’ve baked a cake!

B: When?

A: Who cares!? Let’s eat.

OR

A: Do you want to see The Matrix?

B: No, I have already watched it.

A: When?

B: Hmm, I don’t remember when I watched it.

If we say “when” then we can’t use present perfect to talk about past events.

For example: “I have eaten dinner at 7p.m.” is wrong because we know when.

Free Use (20 minutes)

Finally, with the students’ help, write 5-10 present perfect questions on the board. They should discuss them in pairs, but give more than one-sentence answers. Tell them to just discuss the questions normally and see if they have a chance to use the present perfect. Switch partners for time. Here are some questions you might use.

Where have you traveled?

What have you done that you are really happy about?

Have you ever told a lie?

How have you changed as a person?

What are some good movies you have watched?

Extension: Students should look at each other’s pictures and ask questions in the present perfect. “Have you eaten at this restaurant?” “Have you swum in this lake?” etc.

Homework: Ask the students to write a short essay about their favorite place. They should use present perfect five times in their essay.

Ah, grammar. If words are the building blocks of a language, then grammar is the cement that holds the words together. Though some teachers may complain that grammar is boring, this teacher has never found that to be true. Moreover, I’ve never felt it from my students. The truth is that students match their teacher’s enthusiasm.

Still, in an effort to help, these lessons will be as exiting as we can make them.

A few words on the whole debate about how or even if teachers should teach grammar.

What debate you say? Well, for one, children learn grammar in their native language quite differently from adults learning the grammar of a foreign language. No one explains the difference between present perfect and past simple to their child. So, how do they figure it out? What’s more, when a non-native speaker gets good at English, they stop thinking about the rules and just speak. Think of a diplomat at the U.N. They’re not worrying about grammar rules as they argue.

So maybe students should spend a whole lot more time using language until it becomes intuitive and a whole lot less time trying to comprehend strange rules they’re going to stop thinking about once they get good anyway.

To all this, I answer that grammar rules are good training wheels that stop being necessary once you get used to them. Students find the rules terribly useful. That said, teachers should take advantage of the human inclination to find patterns in a language (as a child does).

Also, so much depends on the specific student. Is the student trying to map English onto the grammar of their language? Those students will benefit from being told the exact rules. Students who, on the other hand, have been studying languages for years are good at seeing patterns. When you don’t tell them the rules, they’ll teach themselves. The theory is this self-explanation is a deeper, more memorable learning.

At the end of the day, though, students benefit from being told the rules and figuring them out on their own. If both elements are in the lesson, you can adjust the time you spend on each part based on feedback from your students. Like a good dancer adjusts to their partner, a good teacher adjusts to their students. The lessons on this site will try to both help students see patterns on their own and take time to explain the rules more fully (usually nearer to the end, but, we’ll switch it up).

Give the students the worksheets. First they should write their own endings to the sentences. Then they should match the given endings. Just walk around and check them as they’re writing.

15 Minutes

Now, read the sentences out loud for the students. They should listen and repeat. Pay careful attention to make sure that they are stressing the correct words. If you’d prefer, you can play this track for them instead.

Now, students should look at their sheets and underline the stressed words.

5 Minutes

Next, read the sentences out loud and have the students repeat them again.

10 Minutes

Walk around and give specialized help as the students practice reading in pairs.

5 Minutes

Now, choose a random sentence and read it with your hands over your mouth. The students should guess which sentence you read. Do another. Ask them how they were able to guess if they couldn’t understand any sounds?

5 Minutes

Now the students should again practice reading the sentences in pairs, but this time with their hands over their mouths. Partners should guess which sentence they were reading.

Extension

After reading each sentence again, students should ask each other: Do you agree or disagree? Why?

Prep Time: You’ll need to get a few limericks beforehand. (Here’s some.)

Materials: Some limericks

Primary Objective: Improve timing and word stress skills

Other Benefits: Practice counting syllables

Plan:

Present Some Limericks (15 minutes): Present three short limericks of the AABBA structure. Write them on the board one at a time. Discuss what they mean. Mention the number of syllables in each line of the poem and that they rhyme.

Writing Pomes as a Class (15 minutes): Now you’re going to write some new poems as a class. First, ask the class for a short sentence. Write it on the board. On a separate piece of the board, write the last word. Then ask the students for a bunch of words that rhyme with it. Write those on the board too. Now, ask the students for another short sentence that ends in one of those words. (Don’t worry about the syllable count just yet.)

You should end up with something like this…

Short sentence: I went to the store to buy a red dress.

Dress: Mess, Confess, Less, Guess, etc.

Second Short sentence: When I eat I make a mess.

Repeat the process to get the third and fourth lines of your poem

Now get one more sentence that rhymes with the first line.

Now, you should have something like this:

I went to the store to buy a red dress.

When I eat I make a mess

I hate using a spoon.

I hope you come soon.

When I buy things I want to pay less

It’s not a great poem, but it doesn’t matter. You’re just working on the form.

You’re almost done. Next, count the syllables in each line with your class. Change the sentences as needed to make the lines that rhyme have the same number of syllables. You can easily change the syllable counts in sentences by adding adjectives and adverbs. (e.g. I bought a book à I really bought a green book.)

Now you should have something like this:

I went to the store to buy a dress. 9

When I eat I really make a mess. 9

I hate using a spoon. 6

I hope you come home soon. 6

When I buy things I want to pay less. 9

Congratulations! You and your class have written a limerick. Now, write two more.

Write Poems in Groups (30 minutes): Finally, put the students into groups and have them write a few poems of their own.

Extension: Ask the students to draw a picture related to one of their poems and then present it to the class.

Ideas for Homework: Send the students on a hunt for limericks on the internet. At the beginning of the next class they can share them in groups.

Objectives: After this lesson, students will be more comfortable asking follow-up questions.

This is a great 30 minute lesson to use at the beginning of the term. If students are good at asking follow-up questions, it’ll make every discussion go better. After they know the skill, you can just shout “follow-up questions!” to make any discussion go longer.

Pre-speaking (2) 15 minutes Then, pass out this handout (or see below). The third line should always be another question. Do the first three together. Students should complete the rest on their own. On the second page, they should create the entire dialogues.

Speaking 10 minutes Have the students practice their questions with a partner.

Extension Play a game where two students come to the front. One should see how many questions they can ask. Then bring another two students forward. The student who asks the most questions wins.

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